Little Falls transcript., 1887-05-27

pals OF milk, the click OF the stanch-
ions, the cheese,making, the butter
packing--everything that belonged to
all the dull round OF the farm duties.
| went about to see the work done,
and said a word to the maids, here,
the men there; and l went and sat
down by my kindling autum fire, and
felt that if had to live here forever l
had better die and be done with it.
had rather die and be done with it
! anyway, II was never to see Mark
| any more; bur then that was no new
feeling.
Do what I would, my thoughts
would follow Mark. Was he there
alone in his fathers house? Was he
! riding gayly round the country, visit.
ing other houses, other girls happier,
than /, hearing music, joiningin laugh
ter? Or was he travelling off in distant
regions, seeing new sights and forget
ting the old, forgetting the past and
me in fresh experience? Or was he sit
ting at home there in the long dim
| room whose windows looked through
the pine-woOd vista over the broad
| valley and away to the blue mount
aims? No one told me; no one ever
ventured to mention his name to me.
But somehow placed him there inthe
long dim room, and there my fancy
kept following him and lowering about
him. Now he sat by the freside there,
in the deep chair, reading, now he was
busy with maps and pictures at the
table; now, in the big bay, the moon
10 a hof = 10
1t cast up from the emerald depths Of
the woods below, fell about him.
dare say that, in reality, busy
| about the place and his affairs of one
sort or another, and doing his best
to live and to forget, he was very little
in that room; but there I chose to
place him; and it grew strangely sweet
to ME, and every moment when I
could sit down alone my fancy took
me and sat down in that room, or
| else | wandered up and down the
great staircase and the hall where his
peoples portraits hung; but ! always
came back again to the hearth of the
long dim room if it were day, to the
| dancing tire-cast shadows there if it
were night, and the place grew dearer
i
upbraided myself in thoughts too bit
ter for speech for the folly and angry
temper that had shut me out of it,
that had drawn comparison between
that ancient lofty place and this low
and tiresone stretch Of nothing but
common grass lands, between that
manor and this plain farm house, al
though in real truth my farmhouse,
was quite it's equal at any other time.
But the new year came in without g.
sign from Mark or sign from me;
and the country was white with snow,
and the river ice was strong enough to
bear up sledges and teams of horses,
and the iceboats We're splitting the
wind before them. It al made no
odds to me. was completely wretch.
ed. didn't pretend to go to church
or to any Of the society meetings; and
if the Sawyers and Wellses came to
me, suppose | treated them prop
erly-Tm sure I don't know-but I
never set my foot outdoors the win
ter long.
There were furious storms that win
ter. The snow fell as never remem-
bered it before. The drifts seemed to
wall us IN from all the world. "a liv-
ing tomb" used to murmer "Iwish
it were a tomb indeed, and I in my
last sleep" At twenty, one can be so
very miserable; and at thirty, if one
lives so long, one can be so profane
as to laugh at it.
Sometimes Bryan and Thomas
brought word OF the outside regions,
OF the way people up-river were sleigh
riding over the tops Of fences, Of the
immense snowfall in the mountains,
and the fears OF what would happen
from it in the spring if there should be
an early thaw. And I remembere
some words that Mark used to quote
from play he had seen, "When this
snow melteth there shall come q atlood."
l didn't care how many floods came
And so, with storm after storm, the
winter wore away, Jane and Maria at
their housekeeping tasks, and busy
with my rugmaking, hooking strips OF
woollen cloth through coffee. bags, not
because the house was not full OF
them, but because had nothing bet
ter to do. For couldn't read; if I
tried my eyes swan, and could not
make out a word of what it was all
about. And people went and came
like shadows; and the days had grown
short, and now they grew long, and
what did 1T all matter to me?
March had come, but without a SIGN
of the winters breaking; and then at
last April loitered on, and Apri! suns
began to do their work; and gradually
the drifts of snow in the lanes and in
fields began to settle, and to lessen
and melt and disappear. And Bryan
and Thomas had to talk Of the brood.
ing hens, and watch for the breaking
up of>the river, and discuss the chance
of the early rye and the new calves
and the hiring OF the spring hands,
and it was all emptiness. And one
day it began to snow, and the snow
turned to rain, and it rained that day
and rained in rivers, and it rained the
next day, and it rained till it had RAIN
ed a week-a long, dreary week that
bade fair to end only in deluge. And
on Saturda ay the SUN came out warm;
and when I looked, the crocuses
bloomed under the windows, and
Thomas said it was very like the May
flowers were opened in the woods if
anybody could get to them for the
roads all being under water, although
the river was still locked in solid ice
from shore to shore. And in the Late
afternoon of the second day oi this
same sweet sunshine and south wind,
as we sat there, Jane and l, Maria
ran in and said there was water i'm the
cellar, as much as six inches.
THAT is nothing" said I. II should
think there would be, after such a
melting Of snow and such raining of
torrents.'
cts more likely it's the land suck